Teacher’s Corner: The Rhythm is Gonna Get You

29 Jan 2016

Teacher’s Corner is a new blog series written by one of mang’Oh’s most experienced (and well-loved!) teachers, Chintamani Kansas. Chintamani also teaches and mentors at mang’Oh’s Teacher Training each year. We will be posting Teacher’s Corner every two months, featuring a detailed look at issues and topics that are of particular interest to yoga teachers, both new and experienced. We hope you will enjoy Chintamani’s wealth of experience, as well as her fun and witty look at the world of yoga teaching!

Yoga has an amazing capacity to bring balance and ease into body and mind. One of the things I love most about yoga is the focus on mindful alignment and honoring the body’s responses, rather than trying to “push” through discomfort or pain.

And yet sometimes a mindful alignment technique needs an update as new information comes to light. One of those techniques is “pull your shoulders down your back,” particularly in poses in which the arms are overhead. (Which is a lot of poses!)

The cue to pull the shoulders down the back is used in all kinds of movement fields from Yoga and Pilates to Physical Therapy, Personal Training, etc. The idea is, if we see people scrunching their shoulders up near their ears, or if we see someone whose shoulder blades are unstable, pulling the shoulders back down will fix all that. Right?

The thing is, when you “pull” your shoulders down the back, you are not stabilizing your shoulders, you are not fixing the tendency to scrunch and overuse the wrong muscles, and you may be causing damage to your body in the process.

Heyaṁ Duḥkham Anāgatam (Sutra 1:16)

A Pain that Hasn’t Happened Yet is Avoidable

If you are lifting your upper arm bone (humerus) over-head, and pulling your shoulder blade (scapula) down at the same time, you are pulling your shoulder joint in two opposite directions, which can quite literally cause damage to the joints, muscles, ligaments and bursas in the shoulder and chest. Further, it creates tension, and lack of mobility in the muscles and bones in the back and chest, so movements are less fluid, and more stressful.

Get the rhythm

The word for shoulder biomechanics is scapulo-humoral rhythm. It is an intricate dance between a whole cast of muscles all around the shoulders and upper back.

While I want to give a shout out to all of these amazing muscles, there is no question that the serratus anterior is the earth support of the arm movement process.

The serratus anterior stabilizes the scapula and assists in scapula upward rotation, which is necessary to lift the arm up overhead. So in the case of a pose, such as Urdhva Hastasana, (High Prayer), the serratus assists with both of those moments. The same mechanism applies to Adho Muhkha Svanasana (Downdog) as well! However, in poses and movements such as pushups and caturanga, the serratus works in more of a static, stabilizing function.

Sthira Sukhamāsanam (Sutra 2:46)

A yoga posture should embody a balance between focus and ease

Scrunching the shoulders up is a habitual pattern that is born out of stress reactions in the body, and the tendency to carry bags and cradle phones on our shoulders. You may notice your own shoulders scrunching right now if you think about how you felt last time you had an approaching deadline. Because we are so often over-busy and stressed in our daily lives, the muscles on the tops of the shoulders (the levator scapulae and scalenes) have become hyper-reactive. Sometimes I think of my shoulders as being like a mother who won’t sit down to eat dinner because she keeps getting up to get things for everybody else. (Or the mother who comes over to visit and starts “helpfully” cleaning your apartment for you . . . grrrrr.) The tops of the shoulders often try to assist in things that are actually none of their business!

Easy does it.

The GREAT news is that reversing the hypertonic shoulder habit –and combining it with the awakened serratus–is actually pretty easy.

Chintamani teaches classic and specialty yoga in New York City, and is a longtime Teacher Trainer in the mang’Oh 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Program. She continues to study yoga, yoga therapy and other healing modalities, including Anatomy, Pilates and Mindfulness Meditation. Chintamani is certified in Embodied Anatomy and Yoga and Kane School Pilates.

Chintamani’s classes blend mindfulness, alignment and joyful movement; encouraging safety and skillfulness, as well as freedom and expression. Chintamani’s mission is to get us all to move, breathe, find our joy, and feel connected and smart.